For the Love of Nathanaël
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: It would be so much easier if he were still in love with Marinette. (Nathanaël/to be decided)
1. Chapter 1

**The pairing for this story is not officially set. The second chapter is going to be the same no matter what and even though I had a default pairing in mind when I started writing this, I made contingency plans! Now I can't decide. So I'm open to suggestions?**

 **Your options include practically everyone, because I'm a rather flexible writer.**

When school let out, Nathanaël couldn't escape the classroom fast enough. A daily sentiment, perhaps, but this time he felt it literally.

"Are you in love?" wide-eyed Rose cooed.

Nathanaël took an unexpected break from shoveling papers and pencils into their respective folders and bags, his own eyes growing larger to match. The quickening of his pulse screamed like an alarm to look for an exit, but tall, dark-haired Julekka materialized to his left and he was cornered. A fistful of pencils slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor as Nathanaël tried to rationalize to himself – 'it isn't anyone's business if I have a crush on someone.'

That was followed by a flash of concern for the state of his pencils, whether the graphite inside of was fractured and broken or if he'd still be able to put off buying more for another week without first losing patience.

Then it went back to (shockingly) more pressing concerns:

"I'm not," he replied weakly, tucking his sketchbook further into the crook of his elbow.

Some people wore their heart on their sleeves, like Rose. Nathanaël, he kept his in the most dangerous place of all – on a paper, where anyone who wasn't blind could look. He already felt as if it were transparent, exposed for all the world to see, not just Rose and Julekka.

"You're blushing!"

"Rose, maybe he doesn't want to be teased about it," chided Julekka.

From the glint of amusement in her eyes, it was obvious she was holding back a giggle. Maybe she was even happy to be an accomplice of Rose's idealistic fantasies. As long as they were directed at anyone else.

"I'm not teasing," Rose pouted. "I only wanted to see who he's been doodling all day."

Hearing that was such a relief, Nathanaël almost sighed outloud. He "doodled" on a daily basis. "What makes you think I was drawing a person?"

Rose recovered her zeal immediately.

"Because you had such a dreamy look on your face!" she insisted, followed by a slack-jawed imitation that left Nathanaël cringing.

Needless to say, his sudden burst of confidence might as well have been lit on fire. He tended to lose himself in his drawings like that. If he were unlucky – which he often was – that heat was being reflected on his face right now. He stared at the floor harder to compensate.

"And you were drooling a little," Julekka chuckled, instantly causing his head to snap back up.

"Julekka!"

It was nice of Rose to try and defend him, but the damage to poor Nathanaël's ego had already been done. With a jerky, reflexive movement, he dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and haphazardly shoved the last of his supplies into his bag. The sound of paper crumpling didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have, not when his heart was jackhammering with terror.

"Julekka is joking, there wasn't really any drool! I promise!" Rose quickly tried to sooth over the situation, alternating between frantically waving her hands in front of her and frantically shaking her head. "Even if there was, lots of things drool – puppies, puppies drool, and everyone loves them!"

Nathanaël didn't care.

'Why does it matter who I like anyway?' he mentally repeated.

He couldn't be like Rose – if the whole world knew, Nathanaël wouldn't feel happy, just overexposed and anxious. Letting his feelings out didn't sound wonderful as wonderful to him as it did Rose. It sounded _terrifying_.

Just like he did now, wincing again as Chloé Bourgeois's shrill voice sliced the last little bit of composure he had left to shreds: "Oh, _please_. Everyone knows clown hair here's got it _bad_ for Marinette."

Nathanaël didn't need to turn around to see the smug smirk on Chloé's face, the self-satisfied way she stuck a hand on one hip whenever she found someone weaker than herself to pick on.

The other girls wasted no time in jumping to his defense, their arguments blurring together as Nathanaël quietly fled the room.

It would be so much easier if he were still in love with Marinette.

 **Instead of an official Valentine's story, I might try to update this story this year. But even though I'm not happy with the writing in this chapter, I have even less time than usual to focus on editing and rewriting things...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Juleka won~ As the winner, next chapter will be written from Juleka's perspective!**

 **But I'm uncertain when I'll be able to write another update, so how should I make it up to everyone? Should I try writing a more interactive story? (Ex: letting people make suggestions for the next chapter, as long as it doesn't stray too far from the original plan?)**

The next thing to ruin Nathanaël's day was something most people would've been happy about – if it had been their post.

As soon as he reached his bedroom, he sunk into his computer chair with a sigh, expecting to relax. Instead, an alert at the bottom corner of his computer screen informed him he had received a friend request from Juleka sometime between the last time he'd checked his mail and the bus ride home.

Hardly anyone knew he had this account. He'd made plans to tell Marinette, once,but never went through with them.

If that alone didn't cause Nathanaël to sit a little straighter, nothing would have. But the message attached to the request made things even worse, piquing his curiosity in all of the wrong ways:

"I think you should see this."

Even though she was smiling in her profile picture, one arm hanging loosely over the shoulders of her best friend, Rose, Juleka rarely joked around with other people. Maybe this was an exception, or spam, maybe –

For some reason, Nathanaël clicked the link.

He noticed several things nearly simultaneously – his art style. A thousand likes. _Chloé Bourgeois' profile picture_.

His fingers quaked at that last one, but that was nothing compared to the way his stomach churned with disgust as he read the caption. Then his heart followed suite, twisting its way somewhere down to the middle of his gut in defeat.

"My boyfriend is such a great artist!"

The time was stamped earlier that afternoon. When he'd been drawing portraits of the entire class. Chloé must've snapped a picture of hers when he'd gotten up to use the bathroom, but why –

Nathanaël shot out of his chair, all but ripping his messenger bag open to retrieve the offending piece of paper. A pretty red envelop fell out instead, something he'd somehow failed to notice in his hurry to leave school earlier.

He turned it over in his hands, almost too numb to register the object at first.

It was the kind of present Nathanaël would've normally been happy to receive, despite the faint traces of glitter it left stuck to his fingers. The envelop was sealed shut with a heart and his name, first and last, was handwritten in a decorative, flowing cursive that would've made calligraphy experts jealous. Instead, all he could think of was Chloé.

That self-centered, entitled, tyrannical –

He clenched the card between his fingers, cardboard bending under the pressure. It was unfair. Of all the people in the world for Chloé Bourgeois to have a crush on, why did it have to be him?

 **I don't think I spell Nathanaël's name correctly, but it's written this way on the character selection... and someone else pointed out I have a tendency to misspell Juleka's. That slipped past my (unfortunate lack of) editing last time, sorry. This chapter wasn't edited either; I don't have time for it lately...**

 **P.S. Since it's Valentine's Day, why not share all of your favorite Miraculous ships? Since this wasn't a very romantic chapter, lol.**


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